Smiling
by youcanreachthestars
Summary: "Without stopping to look at anything else, he hurried up the the path, his black cloak flapping behind him, leaving an indistinguishable trail of sorrow, regret and pain." Snape visits the Potter household one last time. Snape/Lily


Severus Snape approached the old gate leading to the Potter household. It was two weeks since the Potters' deaths, and the baby had been moved to some far-off relatives. The two bodies had been taken, and the double-funeral had been held. In spite of himself, Snape had attended. To represent Hogwarts, and to represent himself. For Lily. Not for _Potter_, that _ass._

As soon as his spidery hand rested on the gate, a sign rose out of the tangled weeds surrounding the post.

_On this spot, on the night of 31 October 1981,  
Lily and James Potter lost their lives.  
Their son, Harry, remains the only wizard ever  
to have survived the Killing Curse.  
This house, invisible to Muggles, has been left  
in its ruined state as a monument to the Potters  
and as a reminder of the violence  
that tore apart their family._

A single silvery tear welled up in Snape's eye, and he blinked it away furiously. No. He would not get emotional, he was here, purely on the tiny impulse that maybe, just _maybe_, Lily had left something for him. A letter. A parcel. Anything that would link him to her one last time.

He walked up the old cobbled path, noticing the crumbled slabs of sandstone, weathered over time. And suddenly, memories smacked him in the face. No, not memories. He hadn't seen these flashbacks before, playing on an iMax screen in his mind. Not memories. Visions. Was his love really that strong that his own mere memory of Lily would send him hallucinating where her soul was strongest?

_Flying red hair, swinging back and forth, as Lily laughed, a beautiful, bell-like sound, rising up into the crisp autumn air. Her legs stretched out gracefully, as she swung up towards the sky, then plummeted down, only to be caught again and lifted backwards in a never-ending circle._

_Behind her stood her husband, James, pushing her on the swing he had just finished making._

_Newly-weds, enjoying their first week back from their honeymoon, relaxing in the golden sunlight._

Without realising it, a calm smile had crept into Snape's lips, as he watched the love of his life laughing, enjoying herself. For a moment he pictured himself where James stood, and an agonising pang of longing seized him, doubling him over, as he clutched at his stomach.

The pain was unbelievable.

As he crouched, he could see a tiny object wedged in the cracks between the cobblestone. A ring? No- a hair clip.

He crouched down to pick it up, and within two seconds, it was resting on his palm, lonely in the small sea of blue-veined skin.

_A rough, yet gentle hand ran through Lily's hand, and his wide, knowing smile beamed across at her._

_Their lips met, one pair soft and moistened with lip gloss, the other chapped, yet strong, desicive. Moving around each other as though in a dance._

_James' hand moved from Lily's hair to her shirt, and slowly began to pull it over her head. Lily gave a slight giggle, nervous, bordering on hysterical. Not sure what to think. Suddenly-_

"_OW! James, that really hurts!"_

_Lily began hopping around, looking ridiculous as her T-Shirt dangled off her head. One of the buttons had gotten caught around her hairclip, and refused to come loose. Her face was twisted in agony, and she was on the brink of crying, but all James could do was laugh._

_She was standing there in her bra and shorts, with a shirt hanging off her head._

_When they had both calmed down enough to take slow, deep breaths, James advanced back in on Lily._

"_You look sexy with that shirt in your hair."_

Snape choked on his own saliva as he wrenched himself out of the second vision. Why did this keep happening? What was wrong with him?

Without stopping to look at anything else, he hurried up the rest of the path, his black cloak flapping behind him, leaving an indistinguishable trail of sorrow, regret and pain. _Lily…_

He reached the door, and shoved it open. But as he did so, an apparition appeared. Almost.

_The Potters came home from St Mungo's as a family unit. A grinning, drooling baby in her arms, Lily, hoisted him up over her shoulder, his torso dangling over her shoulder, and James following behind to make sure she didn't drop him- not that he thought she would. There was nobody he trusted more in the world than Lily Potter._

_She reached out her hand and pushed the door open, and suddenly, Harry slipped._

Snape was filled with a hopeless glee, already knowing the outcome, yet hoping anyway.

_James reached forward and seized his son under the arms._

"_Whoopsies Harry!"_

_It was the first time they had said his name out loud, and it sounded perfect._

_The three sat on the doorstep and played, and played, until the light began to dim, and the air frosted over._

Snape drew in his breath with a sharp hiss. The pain was almost like a knife stabbing into his heart, rendering him dazed and dizzy.

He sidled into the old Potter house, noticing the dusty floors, the cobwebs hanging from the rafters like decorations. The mansion was nothing but an old, burnt out shell. A sudden wave of hatred crashed over him, buckling his knees. Hatred for James Potter, for stealing Lily. Hatred for Harry Potter, for being the reason for her death. And hatred for Lord Voldemort, for destroying the other half of his soul.

He bowed his head, and shuffled further into the foyer. He glanced at the photo frames lining the walls, the glass cracked in some, shattered in other, and in one or two, completely nonexistant. Unwilling to look to closely, yet strangely drawn to them, Snape stepped towards the pictures, his large feet leaving imprints in the dust, another trail, this time physical.

_James and Lily, smiling._

_James, Lily and Harry, smiling._

Snape moved along the corridor, his eyes transfixed on the series of photographs, the pain building up inside him, yet not spilling over. It would never spill over. It would stay inside him forever, because Lily was gone, and nothing would ever come of it other than his own regret.

_Lily and Dumbledore smiling._

_The Potters, James' parents, smiling._

_James and Harry smiling._

Snape was suddenly distracted by the crunching of glass underneath his feet, and simultaneously, he cracked his knee on a low coffee table in front of him. Overcome by shallow pain, he hopped in a small circle, swearing copiously.

"_Rowling,_ that hurts. _Blast!_"

He bent down, and fingered the piece of glass, his knee still throbbing.

_Low lighting, flickering, from the two candles in the centre of the coffee table. Gleaming mahogany wood. _Different to the dull greyed wood it was now, Snape noted.

_Harry was tucked up in bed._

_Lily and James sat across from each other, smiling fondly._

"_I love you James."_

"_I love you Lily."_

_Lily moved her wand in a graceful figure-eight movement, and two champagne flutes appeared out of nowhere. She gave it another wave, and a bottle of Rosmerta's finest mulled mead appeared next to them._

_The cork popped out, and the bottle tilted, the umber liquid rushing out in a glittering waterfall._

_Lily raised the flute, as did James._

_The two glasses clinked, and in unison, they said, smiling,_

"_To us. Happy 1__st__ Anniversary."_

Snape gritted his teeth, dropped the glass shard, and ground it under his foot until it was nothing but a fine crystallised powder.

He shut his eyes, to spare himself from any more of these torturous visions. All they did was hurt.

He felt his way up the banister, feeling the rough, splintery wood under his fingers. How the house had deteriorated this badly he had no idea.

He stumbled on the top stair, and fell to his knees, scraping them along the ragged floorboards. They ripped his shins into shreds of skin and flesh, and he gasped in pain. This was doing nothing but hurting him, this entire expedidion. His eyes flew open, and realised he was kneeling directly in front of a door. His eyes travelled slowly up its greyed exterior, before coming to settle on a small sign towards the top.

_LILY'S ROOM._

Snape's next breath caught in his throat, as he gazed at the sign. It could have been for hours. Or months. It could have been for years. Decades, even. Yet time seemed to pass very slowly.

He was in front of Lily's room.

He clambered to his feet, leaving a spattered trail of blood behind him. He reached out, and turned the handle. It was cold under his touch.

He took two steps into the room, and immediately her smell wafted through his nasal passages. It was floral, typical Lily, but this time it was her favourite. Her most frequent perfume, and, Snape thought, her most beautiful. Essence of Lillies.

He strode to the bed, and braced himself for an onslaught of visions, apparitions, whatever they were called. But they didn't come. It was down to Snape's memory now.

_Lily laughing in the corridors of Hogwarts._

_Snape coaching Lily in Potions, helping her memories the ingredients for Amortentia._

_Lily coaching Snape, in turn, for charms, drilling him in the 'swish and flick' for Wingardium Leviosa, again and again._

_Lily and Snape sitting side by side by the lake, watching the Giant Squid's tentacles writing, stretching, flexing, in the afternoon sun._

_Lily and Snape opposite each other in the Library studying for their OWLs._

_Lily and Snape opening their OWL results, Snape dismayed, Lily jubilant._

_Lily comforting Snape, forcing him to resolve to work harder._

Snape looked up, tears running down his sallow face and falling into his cupped hands, and his eyes snapped directly to a photo frame beside Lily's bed.

_Lily and Snape, smiling._


End file.
